In order to become a successful teenage bodybuilder, you must understand and attempt to perfect four basic concepts involved in the sport. These basic concepts are nutrition, supplementation, the effectiveness of actually lifting the weight, and overall recovery. In the past 15 months of training, I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours educating myself and attempting to become one of the most advanced teenage bodybuilders. Since I began training only 15 short months ago, I've gained over 45 lbs of muscle, going from 130 lbs, to 175 lbs and increased my bench press from 120 lbs to 300 lbs. If you are looking for similar results, I suggest you read on, and use my series of bodybuilding articles to help you achieve the best results you possibly can.

First of all, you must understand that bodybuilding consists of two different stages. The first stage is off-season training, which consists of increasing both muscle mass and body fat, also known as the "bulk-up" stage. The second stage of your training is contest preparation which consists of maintaining as much muscle size as possible, while decreasing excess body fat to increase muscle definition. In this article I will deal mainly with the off-season training and I will deal with contest preparation and getting cut in the near future.

In the bulk-up season, your nutrition must compliment the body's need to grow. If you are like me, and looking to gain as much size as possible, I suggest eating five to six small meals per day. Eating these extra meals elevates your metabolism naturally, and allows the body to stay in a more anabolic state due to the fact there is always food being digested and the body's organs are always at work. It is very important that you engineer these meals to accomplish the common goal in the bulk-up stage, build as much muscle mass humanly possible, while keeping body fat increases to a minimum. My training has shown that the most important factor in gaining mass quickly is increasing your intake of carbohydrates, protein and overall calories.

Increasing your protein intake will enhance protein synthesis (muscle growth), and decrease protein breakdown. From personal experience, I suggest you consume one gram of protein, per pound of body weight that you would like to reach. For example, my goal is to be 200 lbs, therefore, I consume at least 200 grams of protein each day. Divide your protein intake evenly over your five or six meals.

Along with your increased protein, you should also increase your carbohydrate consumption. Carbohydrates are the other muscle building nutrient, but it is also the building block of body fat. Therefore, timing of carbohydrates is what determines if they will make you muscular or fat.

For the pre-workout meal, I suggest that you eat a 3:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. This means that for every gram of protein you consume, you should consume three grams of carbohydrate. This high carb intake prior to training provides your muscles with some of the energy and endurance required for the high energy output of weight lifting. For the post-training meal, I suggest that you eat a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein. This extra intake of carbohydrate accelerates the muscle growth cycle and its less likely to be stored as fat. For every other meal of the day, you should try and keep the carb to protein ratio down to around 2:1.

All fats do not have negative effects in the sport of bodybuilding. Omega 3 fatty acids found in some types of fish actually help enhance muscle growth and are believed to help in the production of certain hormones.

The second basic but fundamental concept in bodybuilding is the use of supplements. I believe strongly in the use of supplements and that they are the key to developing a muscular physique.

For my age, I follow a fairly advanced supplementation program. I use SportPharma Just-Whey, SportPharma CreaVol ATP, Vanadyl,Cytodyne Xenadrine NRG, Prolab N-Large 2, Glucosamine Sulfate and Vitamin C.

For all you people out there that also believe in supplement use, I'll include a copy of my supplementation program.

Training Days: Breakfast: Single serving of Just-Whey Single serving of CreaVol ATP 2 Vanadylph Capsules 1 Vitamin C Capsule 1 Glucosamine Capsule Creatine 10g Nutritional Info: Calories 1950 Carbohydrate 270g Protein 150g Fat 10.1g Lunch: Single serving of Just-Whey Pre-Lift: Single serving of CreaVol ATP 1 Thermadrene Capsule Post Lift: Single serving of N-Large2 Single serving of Just-Whey 2 Vanadyl Capsules Before Bed: 1 Vitamin C capsule 1 Glucosamine capsule

Off Days: Breakfast: Single serving of Just-Whey Single serving of CreaVol ATP 1 Vanadyl Capsules 1 Vitamin C Capsule 1 Glucosamine Capsule Creatine 5g Nutritional Info Calories 107 Carbohydrate 2.2 Protein 23g Fat 0.7g Before Bed: 1 Vitamin C capsule 1 Glucosamine capsule 1 Vanadyl Capsule

This Program is very advanced, but it helped build fourty plus pounds of muscle in 15 months. I'm not going to go in depth with the effects of each supplement, but if there is enough interest, I'll do an article dedicated strictly to supplementation.

The Just-Whey protein supplement supplies the body with extra protein and amino acids to accelerate protein synthesis. CreaVol ATP supplies muscles with added energy by increasing your ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) levels. Vanadylph is an insulin mimicker and helps build harder, denser, more defined muscle. Thermadrene is a therogenic herb stack used to spike intensity and burn fat. Prolab's N-Large2 is a powerful mass building supplement with a 60/40 ratio of carbs to protein. Glucosamine Sulfate helps rebuild tendons, and the Vitamin C is something I use to keep my immune system up and it's a factor in the normal maintenance of bones and cartilage.

The third concept in bodybuilding is actually how effective you lift the weight. As you may already know, in the gym you simply tear your muscle fibers so they will regrow thicker and stronger. Therefore, in order to stimulate maximum muscle growth, you must be efficient at tearing these muscle fibers. To make it short, I'll simply list some of the guidelines I use in the gym.

1. Perform each exercise with perfect form at a slow speed. Always have complete control over the weight.
2. At the contracted point of every rep, stop the movement and squeeze the muscle for a full second. This helps tear additional muscle fibers and it should be performed on every rep of every set of every exercise.
3. Perform all sets to complete failure.
4. Warm-up sets: 10-15 reps Mass building sets: 6-10 reps
5. Intensity and form are the two key factors to gaining extreme size and strength.
6. Take a full day rest between your workouts to let your body rebuild and re-energize.
7. Breathing properly is also an important factor. Exhale when doing the positive portion of the rep.
8. Find something that really motivates you, and learn to turn this feeling on while in the gym. Bring yourself to a level where its just you and the weight in a battle.

Hopefully my knowledge will help you build your body to new extremes. Train safely, effectively and most importantly, keep it natural.

iplocke@nf.sympatico.ca

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